19 August 2015

My name
is Andrew Joyce, and I write books for a living. Amanda has been kind enough to
allow me a little space on her blog to promote my new book, MOLLY LEE.
The story is a female-driven account of a young naive girl’s journey into an
independent, strong woman and all the trouble she gets into along the way.

Now you
may possibly be asking yourself, What is
a guy doing writing in a woman’s voice? And that’s a good question. I can
only say that I did not start out to write about Molly; she just came to me one
day and asked that I tell her story.

Perhaps
I should start at the beginning.

My first book was a 164,000-word historical
novel. And in the publishing world, anything over 80,000 words for a first-time
author is heresy. Or so I was told time and time again when I approached an
agent for representation. After two years of research and writing, and a year
of trying to secure the services of an agent, I got angry. To be told that my
efforts were meaningless was somewhat demoralizing to say the least. I mean,
those rejections were coming from people who had never even read my book.

“So you want an 80,000-word novel?” I said
to no one in particular, unless you count my dog, because he was the only one
around at the time. Consequently, I decided to show them City Slickers that I could
write an 80,000-word novel!

I had just finished reading Mark Twain’s
Huckleberry Finn for the third time, and I started thinking about what ever
happened to those boys, Tom and Huck. They must have grown up, but then what?
So I sat down at my computer and banged out REDEMPTION:The Further Adventures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer in two months; then
sent out query letters to agents.

Less than a month later, the chairman of
one of the biggest agencies in New York City emailed me that he loved the story.
We signed a contract and it was off to the races, or so I thought. But then the
real fun began: the serious editing. Seven months later, I gave birth to Huck and
Tom as adults. And just for the record, the final word count is 79,914. The
book went on to reach #1 status on Amazon twice, and the rest, as they say, is
history.

But not quite.

My agent then wanted me to write a sequel,
but I had other plans. I was in the middle of editing down my first novel (that
had been rejected by 1,876,324 agents . . . or so it seemed) from 164,000 words
to the present 142,000. However, he was insistent, so I started to think about
it. Now, one thing you have to understand is that I tied up all the loose ends
at the end of REDEMPTION, so there was no way that I could write a sequel. And that
is when Molly asked me to tell her story. Molly was a character that we met
briefly in the first chapter of REDEMPTION, and then she is not heard from
again.

Molly is about to set off on the
adventure of a lifetime . . . of two lifetimes.

It’s 1861 and the Civil War has just started. Molly is an eighteen-year-old girl living on her family’s farm in Virginia when two deserters from the Southern Cause enter her life. One of them—a twenty-four-year-old Huck Finn—ends up saving her virtue, if not her life.

Molly is so enamored with Huck, she wants to run away with him. But Huck has other plans and is gone the next morning before she awakens. Thus starts a sequence of events that leads Molly into adventure after adventure; most of them not so nice.

We follow the travails of Molly Lee, starting when she is eighteen and ending when she is fifty-six. Even then Life has one more surprise in store for her.

As I had wondered whatever became of Huck
and Tom, I also wondered what Molly did when she found Huck gone.

I know this has been a long-winded set up,
but I felt I had to tell the backstory. Now I can move on and tell you about
Molly.

As
stated earlier, Molly starts out as a naive young girl. Over time she develops
into a strong, independent woman. The change is gradual. Her strengths come
from the adversities she encounters along the road that is her life.

With
each setback, Molly follows that first rule she set against self-pity and
simply moves on to make the best of whatever life throws her way. From working
as a whore to owning a saloon, from going to prison to running a ranch, Molly
plays to win with the cards she’s dealt. But she always keeps her humanity. She
will kill to defend herself, and she has no problem killing to protect the weak
and preyed upon. However, when a band of Indians (for instance) have been run
off their land and have nowhere else to go, Molly allows them to live on her
ranch, and in time they become extended family.

This is
from a review on Amazon:

“A young female in nineteenth-century rural
America would have needed courage, fortitude, and firm resolve to thrive in the
best of circumstances. Molly Lee possesses all of these, along with an iron
will and an inherent ability to read people accurately and respond accordingly.”

I
reckon that about sums up Molly.

I would
like to say that I wrote MOLLY LEE in one sitting and
everything in it is my pure genius.
But that would be a lie. I have three editors (two women and one guy). They
kept me honest with regard to Molly. When I made her a little too hard, they
would point out that she had to be softer or show more emotion in a particular
scene.

I set
out to write a book where every chapter ended with a cliffhanger. I wanted the
reader to be forced to turn to the next chapter. And I pretty much accomplished
that, but I also wrote a few chapters where Molly and my readers could catch their
collective breath.

One
last thing: Everything in MOLLY
LEE is historically correct from
the languages of the Indians to the descriptions of the way people dressed,
spoke, and lived. I spend as much time on research as I do writing my stories.
Sometimes more.

It
looks as though I’ve used up my allotted word count (self-imposed), so I reckon
I’ll ride off into the sunset and rustle up a little vodka and cranberry juice
(with extra lime).

5 comments:

Sounds interesting! A sequel to Huckleberry Finn :O, never knew that.. I will add it to my TBR.MOLLY LEE has pretty good reviews in both Goodreads and Amazon. Can I enjoy this book without reading REDEMPTION?

Amanda, thank you for posting this interview. It's not only interesting but provides valuable insight for those aspiring to be a published author. Mr. Joyce has already replied to Ria, but having read both books, I'd like to add my opinion. As he stated, neither book needs the other; each stands on its own merit. Joyce is a great storyteller! Each story is well written and historically accurate, but there are no heavy "history lessons" that bog down the reading - takes a lot of skill to educate a reader while retaining the entertainment factor. I call his writing style "3-E": Easy, entertaining, and educational, the last due to the obvious background research effort that's so apparent in the authenticity of the language and credibility of the storylines. I find myself still thinking about these characters, how each reacted to different situations, and interacted with each other. Two great reads, in my humble opinion!